


Of Cups and Kitchens

by goodmorning



Series: Of Cups and Kitchens [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Accurate Baking Times, I'm so sorry, Kent Parson Has A Heart, Other, Polyamory, this is just fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 17:48:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6204853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorning/pseuds/goodmorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack is still mostly on one side of the bed, which is a relief to Bitty because it definitely improves his odds of getting in without waking Jack or prompting him to steal the covers, but Jack stirs a bit when he feels the other side of the bed dip slightly under Bitty’s weight. Bitty freezes halfway on, not because he thinks Jack will wake, but because he turns to face the window, the one Bitty is currently silhouetted in front of with his hair a faint golden halo in the dim light, and cracks one eye open the way mostly-asleep people do, and says a few muzzy words before dropping off again, still. No longer restless.</p><p>What Jack says, sleep-fogged but still distinct, is this:</p><p>“Stay, Kenny.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kenny

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything in 5 or 6 years, and I've never written 3rd-person-present before. This story is nevertheless not terrible, but it's definitely not the greatest thing that's ever existed. Warning: run-on sentences.
> 
> Despite the difficulties involved in establishing and maintaining a poly relationship, this fic is largely on the fluffy side.
> 
> The M rating is entirely due to several(?) not-very-graphic textual depictions of sex.
> 
> I have no idea how to do titles.

It’s an innocuous start.

It’s early July in Providence, a while since hockey season ended and a while yet before hockey season starts. It’s not unbearably hot and the A/C’s not broken and no superstorms are coming up the coast to wreck shit. There have been no major acts of aggression from the USA’s enemy du jour, no deaths of public figures, no controversial legislation passed by Congress or struck down by the courts. There are definitely no explosions or zombies, no apocalypse about to occur. In short, there’s no external drama, no sign that Bitty’s about to have a tiny little life crisis here in their bed at 2 or 3 or maybe 4 in the morning, long before the sun can contemplate rising.

Bitty shouldn’t be awake, really, but sharing a bed is still pretty new to him and they still haven’t run out of excuses not to buy a king and anyway Jack’s been restless tonight and so Bitty goes and preps some desserts around midnight. That doesn’t last long enough; Bitty knows the kitchen even in the dark by this point, sifting flour by feel and checking measurements by the light of his phone’s screen. He doesn’t run into anything and he doesn’t have to search the cabinets to find his favorite mixing bowl. When he’s done with all the prep he can think of, he puts everything safely away, moving dough to the fridge or the back of the counter or stowing it out of the way, stacking the used dishes in the sink as quietly as possible. Bitty won’t bake tonight. Jack isn’t a light sleeper, exactly, but he’s obviously not sleeping soundly tonight - and even if he was, Bitty’s baking tends to make people sit up and take notice. Jack is always up early and Bitty knows Jack doesn’t sleep as much as he should even without the possibility of dessert distractions.

Bitty would go sit out on the porch and think for a bit except the doors are pretty heavy-duty which means he has to slam them closed or else they won’t latch properly, and he’s not about to leave a door open for burglars or paparazzi or really determined hockey fans to just walk in and see that no, Bitty isn’t sleeping in his own room after all, never has. Jack is nearing the point where he might be able to come out and not be fired or ostracized, but he wants a C and a Cup and the Falconers are such a young team and made it so close last year that that doesn’t seem so unlikely or far-off a dream - look at Parson, after all - and Jack had a spectacular rookie season even if it didn’t end in a Cup. Somehow, Bitty can feel the momentum building already, months before the season’s due to start, and stares out the window for so long contemplating the universe likely handing him happiness on a plate that he sort of forgets stars exist and is slightly surprised to see them, tiny pinpricks of light against the dark sky he’s been watching for seconds or minutes or hours.

Well, probably not hours.

But Bitty needs sleep, even if he does usually stay in bed when Jack leaves to hone his Canadian-hockey-robot body, because all that extra prep means there’s going to be extra baking to do and he’ll be darned if he lets any of that cherry filling go to waste because cherry season is pretty much over and these ones are fresh, bought from a charming elderly couple at the farmer’s market. So Bitty looks away from the window, avoids stubbing his toes on the coffee table, and returns to his - their - bedroom. The moon is just a sliver in the sky tonight, so Bitty left the curtains open in their room. He’s grateful for that now, because by that very faint light he can see their bed and the covers and Jack reasonably well.

Jack is still mostly on one side of the bed, which is a relief to Bitty because it definitely improves his odds of getting in without waking Jack or prompting him to steal the covers, but Jack stirs a bit when he feels the other side of the bed dip slightly under Bitty’s weight. Bitty freezes halfway on, not because he thinks Jack will wake, but because he turns to face the window, the one Bitty is currently silhouetted in front of with his hair a faint golden halo in the dim light, and cracks one eye open the way mostly-asleep people do, smiles, and says a few muzzy words before dropping off again, still. No longer restless.

What Jack says, sleep-fogged but still distinct, is this:

“Stay, Kenny.”

Which is a name he’s heard Jack use only twice: first in the Haus, with all the anger and fear and sadness and hurt, and the second time when Parson had congratulated Jack via text on signing with the Falconers and Jack had sent a thank-you text back. Bitty had baked Parson a pie for that one (because who doesn’t love pecan, even if they do pronounce it wrong?), and had gotten a text (through Jack) that was written entirely in ecstatic emojis. 

Kenny.

So Bitty gets the rest of the way into the bed, but he sits propped up against the pillows and tries to sort his thoughts out without freaking out and waking Jack.

It is surprisingly easy.

The ease with which he doesn’t panic about it is actually a lot more alarming than the initial Parson thing, and that’s what gets him closest to freaking out in the end, because what kind of person doesn’t panic when his boyfriend calls him another man’s name in the middle of the night? But Bitty knows Parson, met him properly last January after the game when the Aces came to Providence and the latter came up with the 2-3 win in overtime. Bitty doesn’t know what Jack said or to whom, but most of the Falconers and some of the Aces showed up at their place, and it’s a good thing Bitty suspected it was a possibility because he would definitely not have had enough pies to feed the better part of two hockey teams with. Parson was the last to leave, and he laughed with Bitty and showed him pictures of Kit while Bitty cleaned up and Jack drove some of his teammates home so they wouldn’t be tempted to screw their diets even more by going out drinking.

“You wash, I’ll dry,” said Parson, and it was weird having a Cup winner standing there with Bitty’s second-favorite dish towel in one hand and his third-favorite cooling rack in the other, even though the Falconers were on track for the postseason and Jack could have been one soon too. Things got quiet after a while, and Bitty was done washing, turned around to watch Parson dry, about to ask him why he stayed or why he helped or, if Bitty was really brave, about Jack, but he was only in time to take a breath, open his mouth, and watch Parson’s eyes widen in surprise or fear or maybe both at the possibility before Jack came back, a few snowflakes melting in his hair.

“Could storm tonight,” Jack had said, and Bitty, watching Parson, didn’t see the look on Jack’s face but Parson did, and excused himself as quickly as he could, before anyone could ask him how he planned to get to his hotel or if he’d like to take a pie or two with him.

Jack had bent, buried his face in Bitty’s shoulder then, and said, muffled, “You’re amazing.”

And Bitty hadn’t chirped him for the blush or the compliment.

That was the first night Jack asked Bitty to fuck him, s’il te plaît, and wow, Jack lost control when Bitty prepped him careful as making a pie lattice or baking a soufflé and when Bitty pushed into him nice and slow like rolling out a pie crust and when Bitty took Jack’s cock with his strong hands and stroked it just right until Jack was completely undone, coming hard on the bedsheets and looking at Bitty’s face as though it was a puzzle absolutely beyond the realm of comprehension.

So, Bitty thinks, maybe he already knew on some level. But if that were the case, he would have been uncomfortable with Parson, certainly wouldn’t have let himself be left alone with him, much less taken up his offer of drying, let him in the kitchen at all, let him even look at a pie. Parson is probably not the problem, then; even besides Bitty’s comfort levels, no man who loves his cat that much could ever be a complete dick.

Bitty is suddenly reminded of that EpiKegster Parson showed up to, and his fight with Jack, and Parson had certainly looked like a complete dick then, but Bitty has better context for that night now even though Jack doesn’t ever, ever talk about Parson, and he realizes all at once that they’d dated, once upon a time. Bitty is laughing to himself inside his head about Jack apparently having a type when he suddenly thinks that maybe to Jack he’s not ‘Bitty’ but ‘Kenny part II’ and his heart drops for a minute before he tells himself he’s being ridiculous; if Jack wanted Parson there’d have been no fight and Bitty would be somewhere else, in some other bed, alone.

But then Bitty thinks about Kent Parson and his hair and his attitude and his hockey ass, about his smile and his cat and his jokes, and wonders why anyone in their right mind wouldn’t want Kent Parson. Wonders why they would want him instead.

Bitty doesn’t sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -The Falconers went down in 6 in the Eastern finals against the Panthers Jack's rookie season. Jack may have punched his Uncle Jaromir in the face after Kulikov concussed his right winger in Game 4 and the entirety of both teams went gloves off.  
> -The Aces lost to the Sharks in the Western 2nd Round, though it took 7 games. Chowder watched all of them in the Haus even though he was constantly worried the rest of the team might come in and root for Parse.  
> -George has been having a very good offseason. People still underestimate her.  
> -The Samwell men's hockey team had no games the weekend the Aces came to Providence. They ended the season ranked 6th in D1. (Given the sports eligibility rules and school-break practice time limitations for other NCAA D1 teams I was really surprised to find that they play through Winter Break, which is why this end note is retroactively necessary.)  
> -I spent an obnoxious amount of time looking up fruit seasons and hockey schedules and dessert recipes.


	2. Bitty

Bitty slides down the pillows as 5 am approaches; Jack has a routine, always waking up weirdly close to exactly five without alarm clocks or wake-up calls for his morning run. He doesn’t stir at the slight jolting of the mattress but does wake at 5 precisely, rolling quietly out of bed and dressing in the dark. Bitty pretends to be asleep, and he must do a good job because Jack gets quite close without apparently noticing the loud fast thumping of his sad confused heart.

“Morning, Bitty,” whispers Jack, kissing Bitty’s forehead. Bitty wonders if Jack does this every morning they don’t wake together or if it’s just guilt from last night and did he know Bitty was awake really?

When he hears the front door lock click he waits in the dark for what feels like forever but is probably only about five minutes. When he’s finally satisfied Jack hasn’t forgotten anything, Bitty gets up and heads to the kitchen to bake. To try not to think.

He preheats the oven first, carefully not thinking of Jack’s expression last night. He brings yesterday’s pie crust dough out of the fridge to warm ever-so-slightly ‘til it’s pliable and he doesn’t think about Parson’s politeness those months ago. He takes the cover off the bread dough, grabs the right amount, starts to knead, shape a loaf, and only thinks about Jack’s ass once. He thinks about Parson’s twice, and that alarms him enough that he rushes the dough along just a bit, moving it a little early into the one-loaf bread oven Jack’s mother had given them as a housewarming gift. Then he rolls out the pie crusts, and that at least is truly distracting, because the dough is still slightly too chilled and he breaks the first one three times, the third of which is definitely still the temperature and not his nerves or anything. Spooning in the filling also manages to hold his focus, but he nearly cries making lattices, remembering how he’d felt that day he thought he’d never get to have Jack, and thinking how much worse it’ll be now that he knows what he’ll be missing.

There’s cookie dough chilling in the fridge as well, and Bitty can’t do anything with it yet because the pies will be in the oven a while yet and chilling your baking tray isn’t usually the best idea. He briefly thinks he might sit down on the couch and panic-eat the whole bowl, but it does have eggs in it and Mama would just cry if her boy got salmonella somehow. He’ll make breakfast when Jack comes back, probably around 6 or 6:30, but Jack’s not back yet, and eggs are good protein but gross cold.

He could maybe call his friends but it’s 5:30 in the morning and only Lardo would be a candidate for ‘awake, available, and able to talk in English rather than guttural biology/legal moans’, but Lardo is currently roadtripping to California with some of the other art people and it’s earlier wherever they are by now and anyway Bitty doesn’t want to be responsible for maybe starting a fight between her and the digital media students, the ones she’s already called him twice to complain about. Actually, he could probably call Chowder, but he'd feel guilty about waking him up in the middle of the night and burdening him with this freakout. Or there's Johnson - and why does he still have Johnson's number, anyway? - but it's too early to listen to Johnson talking about how 'this phone call is just a narrative technique that will help drive the plot towards an ultimate realization of feelings, introducing or furthering the story's main conflict' rather than anything Bitty actually needs to hear right now.

He needs something to do to take his mind off the Parson thing. He can't take his mind off the Parson thing. Obviously, there’s only one option: call Parson. It’s 2:30 in Vegas, he parties, he’s probably still up and maybe won’t even remember Bitty asking searching questions about Jack in the middle of the night. Bitty finds the number in Jack’s old-school address book - the one Bitty had chirped him so hard for but is now glad to have in front of him - and dials. It rings, three, four times, then goes to voicemail: 

“Meow! Kit Purrson here! Leave your name and number at the ‘meow’ and meow’ll get back to you!”

Bitty hangs up then and just looks at the phone for a minute. There’s a very strange feeling somewhere in the back of his mind, like he knows something he can’t quite put words to. The harder he tries to chase it, though, the farther away it gets, so he redials almost automatically. This time, there’s an answer:

“Pantyyyyyy, it’s like 5 in the morning. You said you weren’t going to call me at 5 anymoooore!”

“Panty?” says Bitty, and then, “Five?”

There’s silence on the other line for a minute, and then Parson, no longer whining, asks, “Who am I speaking to?”

Bitty almost hangs up but then he’d have disrupted someone’s sleep for no good reason and his mama raised him better, so he tells him.

And Kent says, softer, “Bitty?”

“That is what I said, Parson.”

“Ouch,” says Kent (no, Parson, not Kent), but then, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I… can we talk? About Jack, I mean. I just…”

“Tell you what, I’ll be in Providence in 4 hours, we’ll do brunch. I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” Parson says, and Bitty is probably imagining that he sounds just the tiniest bit like his heart is breaking, because why would Parson care about Bitty's Jack issues? But, then, if he didn't, why would he come all the way to Providence?

Bitty thanks Parson and apologizes for waking him, hangs up the phone. He puts his face in his hands and sighs and tries to think less about his nerves and more about how he’s going to get out of the house without Jack asking where he’s off to and oh, with whom? Bitty’s not the type to lie to a loved one, had enough of that with himself and his parents and the closet, and so it’s a huge relief when Jack, slightly tense, tells him over breakfast that he has a meeting with George this morning. They spend the rest of breakfast coming up with sillier and sillier theories as to what she might say, culminating in 'that your ass is so beautiful PR wants to make it the face of the team,' which is not only fun but also makes Jack relax a bit.

They spend the next couple of hours in companionable silence, Jack diagramming hockey plays he thinks would work with the Falconers' style and Bitty editing and planning videos for his blog. It's nice, being together like this, with only the occasional 'do you think O'Reilly could pull off a good fakeout against the Caps?' and 'people keep asking me about souffle, do you think I should?' It feels comfortable. It feels _right_.

Jack is out the door at 8:30, and Bitty isn’t far behind, again waiting just long enough to be sure Jack won’t be back (time spent contemplating whether he should bring some of the still-warm cookies) before leaving himself. He brings the cookies. He doesn’t want to think about why.

They meet at a nice cafe near Waterplace Park. Bitty likes it because it overlooks the water and the pastry is always fresh, and it occurs to him that maybe he should have said his second-favorite coffee shop instead, because if Parson ruins this one there aren’t any as nice to replace it with. Surprisingly, Parson is already there, Aces snapback on the table and cowlick slightly out of control, and he rises to greet Bitty with a smile that grows and softens when he’s handed the cookies. Bitty can’t help but smile back, despite the worry and the sleepless night, as he sits in the wrought-iron chair across from Kent. They both order - Bitty a scone, a glass of tea, and a glass of ice, Kent a cup of coffee and what seems like the entire pastry menu - before Kent speaks.

“So what did you need to ask about Zimms, Bitty? You sounded kinda wrecked.”

And this is where Bitty is meant to talk about Jack, their respective relationships with him, the thing from last night, so why is it that what comes out of his mouth is, “Why did you think it was 5 when I called you?”

“Because it was? Not like I live in Las Vegas when I can avoid it, Bitty. New York. How would I have gotten here in four hours from Vegas?”

And Bitty should really call Parson on being an asshole, or at least get to what he came here to say, already, but instead he asks, “Why don’t you ever come to visit?”

And Kent just looks at him for a long time like he doesn’t really know what words are, and longer still like he doesn’t really know what answer Bitty wants to hear, before finally saying, “I didn’t know I was welcome.”

And Bitty is still looking for an answer to that when their orders come.

Kent’s the one to break the silence with a change of subject during his third pastry, asking, “It was Zimms you wanted to talk about, right?”

Bitty finishes dissolving a seventh sugar packet into his tea, adds ice, stirs, says, “You were in a relationship.” It’s not a question.

“We were,” Kent says anyway. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I think he’s still in love with you.”

Kent’s eyes widen just a fraction, his mask slipping the tiniest bit. “I don’t think that-”

“Last night,” Bitty interrupts, “when I went to bed, he thought I was you. He asked you to stay.”

“Bitty, it was probably just a dream. It doesn’t mean he loves me.”

“You didn’t see his face, Parson.”

“Oh,” says Kent then, and it seems to be all he can say because he says it again, and Bitty is on the verge of chirping him to try and make him look less - blank, upset? - when Kent asks, “Why didn’t you just ask Zimms about it?”

And Bitty can only say, “What?”

“Bitty, what were you hoping I’d say here? We had a relationship, it was a long time ago, I probably know all about him, right? 'Parse’ll be a fantastic person to ask for advice!'”

At which Parson - shoving a pastry in his mouth, his hat on his head, and his chair away from the table - leaves. 

Bitty feels unexpectedly adrift, and it’s not only because of the tea.

But he’s pretty good at reading people, at least insofar as their feelings don’t relate to him, and Parson’s - Kent’s - outburst starts to gain clarity; “he’s an asshole” is replaced by a new idea, one that makes the entire morning make a lot more sense and explains why he went out of his way to come to Providence.

 _Kent is still in love with Jack_ , he thinks, and the thought of that hits him both harder and softer than he’s sure it should. He wonders idly when Kent first realized he loved Jack, which brings Bitty back around to his own heart-crushing realization in the kitchen that day and how beautiful the kitchen is in their home and Kent in that beautiful kitchen laughing and drying and _shit_ , thinks Bitty, _I should probably never be alone in my kitchen with a handsome man again, because he’s hot, and sweet, and I’m just a little bit in love with him, aren’t I?_

_At least this time I know the guy’s not straight._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Lardo went on the roadtrip accidentally. She doesn't get along with the digital media artists because they say rude things like "You used real hair in that painting? Oh God that is so gross."  
> -Of course Parse's voicemail message is him pretending to be his cat, and of course he deliberately lets it go to voicemail when important people call him.  
> -Panty is what Parse (and only Parse) calls Mark Panter, the Aces GM that I have completely made up. He genuinely thinks Parse is hilarious and does actually wake-up call him during the season. This would normally not be something a GM would do but Parse probably made it necessary.  
> -Parse lives near, but not in, NYC. Sometimes he manages to stay at home when the Aces play in NY and NJ. He likes pies that aren't just sweet - nut pies and sour fruit pies are more his speed.  
> -Parse is a preemptive dick to people, which is pretty much the only way you can read 2.9 and not want to strangle him.  
> -Parse takes as many cheat days as he can without actually jeopardizing his hockey. Jack takes about one every two months, and that only because Bitty makes him.  
> -To make proper sweet tea you have to add the sugar while it's steeping.


	3. Jack

The thing is, Bitty is definitely still head over heels for Jack, and he’s never really considered going poly (though he hadn’t really considered going _gay_ , either, he’d just stopped being able to deny it). Even if he had, it’s hard enough keeping one NHL star in the closet, let alone two, and Bitty’s blog is up to around 40,000 followers and counting which means he gets recognized sometimes too, and the Aces are so far away, and hockey players are so busy, and there are so many complicating factors over and above the difficulty of balancing three…

And then he notices that thinking about distance, logistics, mechanics? Yeah, that counts as considering it. More than that, he’s starting to feel like even with all the extra difficulties involved, he really wants to try it. Which means he’s going to have to talk to Jack, convince him that Bitty’s willing to share him with Kent if that’s what he wants (and what Kent wants). Maybe one day in the distant future Bitty will somehow charm Kent, and they’ll have a triad rather than a V, but for now he just wants Jack to have the moon and sky, wants to never see Kent use pastry to mask his heartbreak again.

So he eats his scone more quickly than it deserves, finds out that before he arrived, Kent had dropped the cafe staff $100 and told them to keep the change, insists on tipping them anyway, and heads home to wait for Jack.

Jack returns about 15 minutes after Bitty takes the bread out of the oven, and they talk about the meeting while he gets out the skillet and the turkey bacon and Jack starts slicing tomatoes, and it’s a good thing Bitty’s not the one with the knife, because Jack concludes the meeting talk by telling Bitty that in some respects his ass _is_ going to be the face of the team, because he’s got the C. Bitty tells Jack to put the knife down, right now, and keeps one eye on the pan as he checks Jack into the island for a celebratory kiss or three until the bacon needs flipping and he tells Jack to slice the bread, yes, with the bread knife, Jack, it’s very fresh and you’re not going to ruin it with the wrong knife.

They finish lunch (“Eat more protein, Bittle,” says Jack, putting the last slice of bacon on Bitty’s plate) and a tiny sliver of celebratory pie (maple-sugar-crusted apple; he may have known the general timeframe for this announcement in advance). Bitty is loading the dishwasher when he remembers brunch and says, “Jack, there’s something we need to talk about,” and Jack looks stricken and Bitty realizes he didn’t use the best possible phrasing and _Bitty_ looks stricken and clarifies, “oh, goodness, Jack, I didn’t mean like that, I’m sorry!” And Jack gets a lot less tense. Bitty knows, though, that it’s only going to get worse when they start talking, so he suggests that they talk in the living room, on the couch so comfortable that Shitty’d threatened to live on it when Jack first moved in (“Harvard’s not that far, bro, I could totally commute”).

“Something’s going on, eh?” asks Jack in a thickening accent when they’ve both sat down, leaning on opposite armrests and Bitty’s feet in Jack’s lap, and Bitty knows he’s feeling insecure enough to sound like a French Canadian stereotype which means this conversation’s going to be harder than he thought. But it has to happen, so Bitty takes a breath and begins.

“Last night,” he says, and so help him, his accent’s gotten stronger too, “when I came to bed, you woke up, just a little. You thought I was leaving, asked me to stay.” He pauses to fortify himself. Jack just looks confused.

“You called me Kenny,” Bitty says, and Jack flinches, crumples, looks panicked, like this is a nightmare he’s been forced to confront in the light of day.

“It’s not what you think…” Jack starts, but he doesn’t seem to know how to continue.

“I know y'all had a relationship,” says Bitty, gently. “I know you still have feelings for him.” Jack looks like he’s going to deny it then, but Bitty cuts him off. “It’s OK, Jack. That’s why I want to talk about it, because it’s OK.”

“What?” asks Jack, and then, “How?” and then, “Bitty, I want you, not Parse, please don’t -”

“Who says you can’t have both?”

“Um,” says Jack. “Eh?”

Bitty should have known he’d have to spell it out. “We can share you.”

“Is that a… does that work? Why would you…? Bitty, I don’t want you to do anything that will make you unhappy.”

“Jack, if it would make me unhappy I’d never have suggested it. What would make me the happiest right now is for you to be happy. Kent is a sweet boy, and you’re both hurting, and I can do something about it - and as long as I have you, I don’t need anything more.”

Jack moves Bitty’s legs then, and hugs him for a long time, then pulls back, looking Bitty in the face, hands on his shoulders, looking serious, but then he puts on a terrible impression of Bitty’s accent and says, “Mr. Bittle, I do declare! You’re sweet on Mr. Parson yourself, ain’t ya?”

Bitty blushes, says, “That’s the worst accent you’ve ever done, Mr. Zimmermann,” and then, seeing that Jack isn’t going to let it go, adds, “Yes, but him and me, we don’t have to happen. You can be with him whether he wants us both or just you. I really don’t expect him to want to be with me anyway.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Bitty,” says Jack, actually serious, and he looks like he’s contemplating something but decides not to say it. “So how do we ask him? And how do we make it work if he says yes?”

The thing is, Bitty isn’t really sure how to go about asking Kent to join them, hadn’t thought that far ahead. Realistically, neither of them is very good at declarations of intent. Bitty still probably wouldn’t be able to find the courage to say whatever speech they come up with, and Jack probably couldn’t find the words - and suddenly kissing Kent would almost certainly give him the wrong idea. How to ask is such a difficult question that how it would work feels like a really distant concern.

They’re still coming up with scenarios three weeks later. Jack has just vetoed Bitty’s carnival idea and Bitty Jack’s spelunking when they realize that they’re burning time, that Kent might already be back in Vegas doing captain things with the rookies and the trades, but they still don’t know what to do, only that they really need to do it together.

And then _Jack’s_ doing captain things with the rookies and the trades, and Bitty’s baking the whole team mini-pies in a variety of flavors and promising the nutritionist again that he won't ruin their diet plans during the season, and they burn another week trying to talk about it and being interrupted at all hours by the future of hockey, which is a lot more immediate than the future of their relationship with someone who doesn’t even know they want one.

August is nearing its middle and Bitty is packing to return to Samwell when they run out of ideas and decide, screw it, let’s just call him and let him deal with it, but Kent doesn’t pick up when Bitty calls, and hangs up on them when Jack does.

They’ll have to do it in person, realizes Bitty after the sixth Kit Purrson message of the day, and goes to look up the Falconers’ game schedule. The results are disappointing. Jack, it turns out, will go to Vegas in December, and he’d be happy to bring Bitty but Bitty has finals that week. The day the Aces play in Providence is probably worse; it’s late March, and Captain Bitty is going to have to get his team through what will undoubtedly be some grueling D1 playoffs, the runup to the Frozen Four. It’s only inconvenient for telling Kent if the Wellies get that far, of course, but Bitty is determined that they will. Jack could always just tell him, of course, but he insists it’s a really bad idea, says he doesn’t want to hear whatever plagiarized ‘other woman’ speech Kent would undoubtedly come up with. So they’ll wait until hockey’s done and Bitty’s graduated and Kent’s on the same coast at least. Then they’ll find a way to see him, speak to him, tell him what they want, ask him how he feels.

Until then, there’s hockey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Bitty's blog has an increasing number of followers because of his connection with Jack via Samwell hockey.  
> -$100 dollars was enough to cover the bill and a decent tip, but Parse did order a ridiculous number of pastries and pastries aren't cheap.  
> -Last year's Falconers were pretty similar in makeup to this year's Panthers, with Jack as a younger Jagr. Their captain was a journeyman who spent most of the season on IR and then retired (though I don't know if Mitchell will). They've got a lot of young talent.  
> -I don't actually know if you should cut fresh bread with a bread knife. My grandmother usually does it with a bread saw.  
> -Jack's 'hands-on-shoulders-serious-conversation' pose is something he doesn't realize he picked up from his dad.  
> -Don't ask someone to join a relationship with you and your boyfriend at a carnival or in a cave.  
> -Google Docs wanted me to change "Bitty calls" to "Booty calls," which is kind of amazing.  
> -Prepare to identify with Zimbits' frustration over the next 9.5 in-story months.


	4. Fall

With the beginning of the preseason, the attention of the press turns to hockey, and to hockey’s prodigal son, Jack Zimmermann. 

Yes, they actually put that in a headline. No, he doesn’t want to talk about it.

He gets why they’re obsessed with him - fallen-star-risen-from-the-ashes is a good story, he knows from his HIST342: History of Journalism class - but what he doesn’t get is why they’ve suddenly become so obsessed with giving him a nickname.

The thing is, he hasn’t let anyone close enough to style him someone else, not for a long time. His teammates at Samwell were nearly there, he supposes, but they never tried. Jack suspects he has Shitty to thank for that, if Shitty would ever admit he’d run interference and Jack would ever admit he’d needed it, that he wasn’t ready for something like that on a lot of levels. Because he hasn’t wanted a nickname, hasn’t felt like he deserves one, not since Kenny.

And maybe he could be Zimms again, now that he’s got Bitty and a C and he doesn’t feel like he has to hold himself together at the seams all the time, now that he’s not constantly regretting every tiny mistake or his one huge one, now that he could have Kenny again without self-destructing… But he doesn’t _feel_ like Zimms anymore, not when he’s home or grocery shopping or out with Bitty somewhere. Not even when he’s playing hockey, really. Maybe when he’s with Kenny? Last time he saw Kenny he had felt like fire, just a little bit, dangerous but necessary, a controlled burn, November at Mont-Tremblant.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember what Zimms felt like. But maybe it was that.

At any rate, he’s better now, sharp-sour edges mellowed by Bitty’s sweetness, so he doesn’t have any real objection to having a nickname, if one should come up, but the press are way too into it, making up more stupid headlines than Jack had hoped were possible.

Beats Chara? Jack-the-Giant-Killer. Chops a puck out of the air? LumberJack. Forces turnovers? Hi-Jack. Jack-Knife, CrackerJack, Jack Russell, BlackJack; the list starts to become more annoying than amusing as it grows. The Providence Journal runs with “The Day You Almost Caught Captain Jack Sparrow” on the front page of the sports section, which Jack doesn’t understand until Bitty explains about the Pirates of the Caribbean, at which point he’s still confused ("They made a movie out of a Disney ride? Three movies? Five movies? Some of them don't count?") but at least he gets the joke now.

He’s pretty sure when he takes a high stick to the teeth they’re going to try “Jack-o-Lantern.”

He draws the line at Jack Frost, saying in an understated postgame interview that they shouldn’t try to force a nickname, it’ll happen if it happens. He doesn’t tell them how obvious and uninspired that one was, because he’s pretty sure they’d call him something worse.

The press does get bored with him eventually, near the end of October, when the Kings start to streak and Detroit gets hot. It’s a huge relief, but it makes Jack start thinking about Zimms again (and, speaking of relief, he’s really glad just now that none of the Falcs have ever tried to call him that).

He wonders, if he’s with Bitty, can he really be Kenny’s Zimms again? He’s happy now, a lot happier than Zimms would have been, he tells Bitty, and what if they’re too different now to ever be together again?

Bitty tells Jack it’ll be fine but knows him well enough to realize words aren’t always enough, so he clears a weekend he knows Jack’s going to be home and heads to Providence. He lets himself in, checks the time, heads to the bedroom to get ready.

Half an hour later, Jack comes home, sees someone else’s shoes in the entrance, doesn’t smell pie. So he goes to check the bedroom. What he sees isn’t really that unusual - there’s a blond man on his bed.

Except this blond man is looking at him with gray-green eyes, flushed face, snapback askew, cowlick going wild, jeans unzipped.

“Missed you, Zimms,” says the man on the bed, and with that Jack realizes that 1. this is reality, 2. the man on the bed is Bitty, and 3. Bitty is definitely sitting there and lazily palming his cock while pretending to be Kent Parson. 

He really doesn’t know what to do with that information. 

Until Bitty tells him.

“Want you to come over here, Zimms,” he says. “I want your mouth on me, want you to suck my dick like you play hockey,” and he goes on, getting downright _filthy_ , and Bitty is never this vocal in bed and how did he know Kenny was?

When Bitty comes in a sea of words (“so good, Zimms, forgot your mouth was so…”), Jack forgets himself, just for a moment.

“Shut up, Kenny,” he says, then freezes because _what the fuck is he doing_ , but Bitty’s right there with the perfect response:

“Make me, Zimms.”

Much later, after Bitty takes out the contacts and washes the product out of his hair, they’re cuddling on the couch, watching the real Kent Parson deke past Karlsson to put the Aces up 2-0 on the Senators. There are a lot of things Jack wants to ask but he doesn’t, instead telling Bitty it wasn’t really the sex he was worried about. Bitty tells him that he knows that, but couldn’t think of another way to express how fine it was all going to be and was Jack still worried? Because he’s pretty sure that they’ve grown up a lot since they were Kenny and Zimms but probably in the same direction, so Jack really shouldn’t worry.

He’s not still worried, and says as much, and they sit quietly and go back to watching the game.

Watching Parse score, they decide that it’s kind of weird to impersonate a real person for sex purposes and they probably shouldn’t do it again. 

Besides, they’ll have him soon enough.

\--

Bitty finds himself watching Aces games on his phone whenever they play, no matter what he’s doing. Homework, baking, kegsters, it doesn’t matter. Even if he’s watching the Falconers on TV, he still looks down at the phone in his lap during commercial breaks. There’s not a lot of overlap, though. Most of Kent’s games are late, Vegas being in the Pacific division and therefore playing frequently in Pacific Standard Time, so Bitty watches a lot of them in bed.

It becomes a habit, last thing before he goes to sleep, to text Kent a quick ‘Congratulations :)’ each time the Aces win.

Kent doesn’t reply.

\--

The second Bitty returns to the Haus at the end of August, he fires up Betsy II to make pies for all the frogs while Chowder and their new manager (no, he doesn’t ask how Farmer has the time to be on one team and manage another) give them the campus tour. He’s seen their tape, and he’s speechless. This is a quality crop of frogs; two of them in particular (Fish and Kim) will bulk up pretty nicely and are nearly as fast as Bitty. He can only imagine how far the team will go this year, with the new talent, with Dex and Nursey able to work together at last, with Chowder maturing and improving every single time he gets between the poles. 

And with Bitty, who’s still fast on his feet and has honed his hands and his confidence practicing with Jack, who’s been taking pointers from his Uncle Jaromir, pointers that are measured in hours of extra practice and pounds of weight added to his torso, his ankles, his stick; and, once, with the Falconers’ entire D-line, when Jack told them he had small and fast lined up that they could test themselves against and every single one of them showed up.

Still, expectations aren’t reality, and while the Falcs are comfortably cycling through the top 3 in the Metropolitan at the end of October, Samwell’s 7th in the ECAC, exactly in the middle. It’s not good enough. During one of their nightly Skype sessions, Bitty asks Jack what to do. Jack asks a bunch of questions about the new frogs and the old frogs and the optional practices Bitty runs and the lines the coaches are choosing, then tells him to talk to the coaches about the top line, that Skimmer and Fisher look fast enough if Bitty thinks they’re ready, and they can put together a first line that will push the pace of the game, beating defenders on speed and skill rather than strength. Wicks and O’Meara, he says, are good choices for wingers on a more traditional second line. To completely change the pace of your game, to control the momentum, Jack says, might be the strategy the Wellies need.

Bitty talks to the coaches, who agree to give the strategy a shot, agree the frogs have been training hard and might be ready for a chance, maybe only agree because Bitty namedrops Jack, but who cares? _They agree._

Samwell drops only one game in the month of November.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Regular season hockey for the NHL and NCAA begins in October. NHL teams play 6 preseason games in September.  
> -Mont-Tremblant is a mountain with some sort of national park/forest attached. It's near Montreal.  
> -This chapter and the ones following it introduce players, both real and fictional, who are totally going to get Jossed by trades and comic 3.2, respectively. Zdeno Chara is the tallest ever NHL player, a defender and captain for the Boston Bruins. Erik Karlsson is a defender and captain for the Ottawa Senators. Jaromir Jagr is a right winger for the Florida Panthers.  
> -Any hockey forward who's good will lose teeth. (Though if Jack continues to go full-face like he did at Samwell, he could avoid that fate.)  
> -The sex just kind of happened? I don't know. Bitty only guessed how Parse would be. The pastry thing was his big clue.  
> -Farmer probably doesn't have time, but making up someone new would have been troublesome.  
> -Fish and Kim = Fisher and Skimmer. Shitty nicknamed them when he was supposed to be at a family thing. They're the last Wellies Shitty nicknames, and they make it into a story to rival 'Jack vs. the football team.'  
> -Jaromir Jagr trains insane, which is how he's 44 and still a 1st line winger on a playoff-bound team.


	5. Winter

They win the first game of December too, but it comes at a price.

They’re playing Yale. It’s two minutes left in the third and the game is still scoreless. Bitty’s line goes in, and he immediately presses the advantage, speeding through the neutral zone past Yale’s defenders like he’s about to go for a Johnny Weir quad-triple-double rather than a Jack Zimmermann goal. But he gets there too quickly, the goalie’s probably too good to for Bitty to beat one-on-one in this short of a timeframe, so he sits on it, buying a couple seconds by faking a wraparound as his linemates catch up and the defenders loom nearer, and executes a goalie-freezing pass to his center, Fisher, who slams it home just as Bitty slams into the boards.

It’s a very mild concussion; he’ll only miss the next two games, tomorrow’s and next week’s, and then there’re no games until the end of the month, by which point he’ll be fine. Jack Skypes him that night fresh off a win in Vancouver (at least, Bitty thinks it’s Vancouver, he _does_ have a concussion) and freaks out, but Bitty assures him that everything’s fine.

And everything _is_ fine for the Wellies, who go 1-0-1 without Bitty.

But the Falcs go 4-3-4 in their next 11, losing the last 5 before their 4-day Christmas break, two in a row at home to the Panthers and the Lightning, two more on the road to Sharks, Kings. The last game before the break is the Aces, and Bitty’s totally fine now, but Jack sees Kenny and his feelings get all mashed up, guilt for every time Bitty got hurt on his watch and guilt for wanting Kenny so bad and guilt for almost dying, and the weight of all that guilt makes him a little slow to react so when the puck drops Parse wins the faceoff easily, and that pretty much becomes a theme for the whole game, down to him stealing the puck right off Jack's stick and sniping the game-winner.

Jack is such a mess. Bitty texts Kent anyway.

The Falconers end December on a 7L streak.

But Bitty’s return to health and a trio of wins for Samwell seem to stabilize Jack, stabilize the Falcs, and they win the next two, easy ones at home against the Oilers and Columbus, and the next, much harder, in Chicago, and then they keep winning. At home, away, New York, LA, _they don’t stop winning_. The commentators start to talk about their streak with awe when it reaches double digits, tying the Kings’ October-November stretch, and then they crush Ottawa on the road and they’re in sole possession of the longest streak so far this season. Their next game, the last of January, is in Toronto, and when they leave Jack’s almost embarrassed for the Leafs and for Bernier especially because the score is 8-0 and Providence is starting to pull out in front of every other team in the league, accumulating points like Shitty still accumulates coming-outs.

So they’ve got a W12, but they’re going into a tough February so Jack’s not sure whether they can keep it. He’s certainly going to try, though, and when the Falconers hit Texas, they beat the Aeros on a last-minute goal that Jack assists, snap the Stars’ 8-game win streak 3-1. The commentators begin to talk about it quietly, reverently, refusing to mention the future in case they jinx it. They come home, beat the Ducks and the Caps in a shootout and overtime, respectively, and then they head to Pennsylvania on the second-longest win streak the NHL’s ever seen.

The Flyers go down way easier than they should, Johnson (James, not John; not metaphysical but still one of the weirdest goalies Jack’s ever known, and on the subject of weird, why did he just use the word ‘metaphysical’ to describe John Johnson?) recording a shutout, and suddenly Providence is sitting on a record-tying 17-game win streak.

The other team that holds the record? The ‘92-3 Pittsburgh Penguins. Uncle Mario’s Penguins. The same Pens Uncle Mario now owns. The same Pittsburgh they’re playing next. 

It’s a Wednesday, but the game sells out. Sports bars across two countries are packed. Hockey fans everywhere are calling in sick for tomorrow. Two of Canada’s hockey giants, both in their 20’s, one playing to break a record and one to keep it, first and second in the Metropolitan, serious Cup contenders. 

In short, it’s _intense_.

Uncle Mario is there, of course, and Uncle Jaromir, who was also on the ‘92-3 Pens and doesn’t have a game tonight. Bad Bob, who wasn't, who’d been traded after winning the Cup with them in ‘91, is next to them, wearing a Falcs jersey that Jack doesn’t remember him owning, that he hadn’t worn during last year’s playoffs. He turns a little and Jack sees the number 1 on the sleeve, knows it must say ‘Zimmermann’ on the back, same number and name as all the different teams’ jerseys his dad ever wore, and then realizes that it’s not the same at all because this number 1, this Zimmermann, refers to him, and he’s exhilarated for a moment. Before he can think to worry about whether he deserves it, his gaze falls on the seat next to his father, thinking his mother will be there, but she’s not. Instead, it’s Bitty. Bitty, who must have left Samwell the minute class was out, dropped money on a plane ticket, probably skipped practice to be here so Jack has to make this count, make sure Bitty’s time is worth it.

Puck drop is at 7, and by 6:30 nearly every hockey fan on the continent is watching. Detroit is playing in Buffalo at the same time, so a few Red Wings fans are tuned in to that, but everyone else is watching, waiting, wondering, believing in Jack Zimmermann at last.

They line up. The puck drops. Jack wins the faceoff.

At the end of the first, Providence is up 1-0, and Bad Bob and Bitty seem to be in a tag-team chirp war with Uncle Mario and Uncle Jaromir. Jack can’t read lips, but he’s pretty sure Bitty just said the word ‘mullet’ and resolves to ask how that one went down.

At the end of the second, Providence is down 1-2, and Jack is feeling the pressure, but then his dad catches his eye and smiles encouragingly, and Bitty’s right there cheering, and he remembers that 1. he can do this, or how would he be here? and 2. his team can do this too, or how would they all be here? And he feels much better, giving an impromptu speech that none of them remember afterwards, least of all Jack himself, but they all swear it was the best they ever heard.

With one minute left in the third, Providence is up 3-2, and the Pens go empty-net. And then somehow Malkin gets the puck with three seconds left and fires it at the top corner of the goal and Johnson can’t see it until it’s too late. At the end of the third period, the score is 3-3. They’re going into overtime.

Skating 3-on-3 is kind of different, and Jack’s still not really used to it. His chief concern, though, is Johnson, who’s fairly young and fairly new for an NHL starting goalie and might be a bit shaken by that last goal. So Jack pulls him aside, says he trusts him between the poles - and the team all know that Jack never says anything about hockey that he doesn’t mean.

It’s actually an even better motivational speech than the last one.

Both sides take shots. Both sides get chances. Neither side scores. Johnson makes a save on a rebound that Jack is pretty sure is impossible. And then overtime ends. The score is still 3-3. They go to a shootout.

The Penguins choose to shoot first, sending Letang out to start them off. He hits it fast, but Johnson’s faster, dropping to close the five-hole like his knees are on fire. Jack’s LW is next, but he comes too close to Fleury, who gets his stick on the puck and knocks it away. Malkin’s turn, and he comes in fast, recreating his last goal by sniping it into the corner before Johnson can reach it. Jack’s RW makes his shot too, banking it off his skate and backhanding it in top shelf. And then it’s Crosby. He comes in quick, deking and feinting, and shoots, Johnson lunging and twisting, ending up spreadeagled, legs in the net, and neither Jack nor Crosby nor the refs seem to know where the puck is, whether it went in or not, until Johnson lifts his glove and there it is and what a save! and now all Jack has to do is score.

**No pressure.**

He takes the ice, builds speed gradually, protects the puck from Fleury’s stick somehow, banks gloveside suddenly, fires. He hears it ping off the crossbar as he skates away but doesn’t know whether it’s deflected out or in until he turns and sees his team coming at him and now he’s in the middle of a massive celly because _they’ve just broken an NHL record._

He’s still on the ice as Pittsburgh fans file out and Falconers fans dance in the aisles, and he sees the owners’ box is empty and they’re coming down to the ice. Uncle Mario is there first, shaking his hand and smiling for the cameras, leaning in to whisper in Jack’s ear that he’s so proud of him. Uncle Jaromir is right behind, cracking jokes about how Jack should work on his flow if he’s going to play like that and more jokes about the playoffs. Bitty is next, a hug and a smile and some quick congratulations, nothing that should cause awkward questions from the press. And then there’s Bad Bob Zimmermann, Dad Bob Zimmermann, wearing his son’s jersey and looking at him with so much pride, and then they’re hugging, and Jack remembers every minute of the game but not how that happened.

“Last season,” says Jack’s dad into his shoulder, “you were great. This season,” he says, pulling back, hands on Jack’s shoulders, about to create tomorrow’s front-page sports headlines, “you’re a legend. A legend in your own right.”

Their streak is snapped two days later in St. Louis. Jack doesn’t care.

\--

Later that night Bitty congratulates Kent on his win in Vancouver.

‘Congratulate Jack,’ Kent replies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Johnny Weir is a figure-skater-turned-analyst who's been involved in plenty of controversy over the years.  
> -In figure skating, it takes a lot of speed to land a quad. It takes a lot of speed to land a combination. It takes an awful lot of speed to land a combination with a quad in it.  
> -The only concussion research I did was a lifetime of watching football.  
> -Ties are permissible in NCAA play, but not in the NHL. The third number you see in those NHL stats is OT/SO losses, for which the losing team receives 1 (pity) point. Wins are 2 points. Losses in regulation are 0.  
> -Other options for the 'accumulation' line: Lardo, bits of people; Ransom, stress; Holster, time spent taking care of Ransom; Dex, repair jobs; Nursey, chill; Chowder, Sharks stuff.  
> -I looked up the Bad Bob comic to confirm a small detail in a later chapter and yes, he wore the #1, which gave me really intense feels about how fucked up Jack is.  
> -Alicia Zimmermann engineered Bitty's attendance at the game, which is why she isn't there.  
> -Real player roundup: Jonathan Bernier is the starting-ish goalie for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Mario Lemieux still owns the Pittsburgh Penguins, for whom he played center. Jaromir Jagr has been mentioned before. Sidney Crosby is a center and C for the Pens and is the definition of Canadian hockey robot. Evgeni Malkin is a center/right winger and A for the Pens. Kris Letang is a defenseman for the Pens. Yes, he can shoot. Marc-Andre Fleury is the starting goalie for the Pens. He's very good.  
> -Hockey is probably only second to baseball in terms of superstitiousness.  
> -I tried not to make up any Falconers but the goalie's kind of important in a shootout. So, meet Johnson. Jack walked into the locker room on his first day to find Johnson doing a headstand in full gear. To Jack's credit, he wasn't phased, just asked what Johnson's favorite pie was. Pecan. He was the first Falconer to get a mini-pie. He wears the number 98. In terms of experience, think Andrei Vasilevskiy (second goalie for the Lightning) 2 seasons from now if they trade Ben Bishop (starting goalie) to free up cap space to keep Steven Stamkos (C, center) after this season.  
> -Jaromir Jagr's flow back in the 90s was sick. He is also genuinely hilarious with interviewers.


	6. Spring

In March, Samwell reaches #3 overall, #1 in the ECAC. Bitty won’t let them throw a kegster to celebrate, though, because the conference championships are about to start and they can’t afford to do anything stupid now. He curtails baking, too, in favor of extra training in the weight room, extra drills with whoever has time, extra shooting practice with Chowder. When both Chowder and their backup goalie are free, he organizes pickup games, red vs. white, random lineups, and they play 10 minutes at a time, changing teams in between, finding new weaknesses and working on fixing them.

Jack comes down to Samwell one day when his practice gets cancelled because of some basketball thing, which he’d normally be worried about except that a Bruins loss tonight will pretty much clinch the East for the Falcs. When he arrives, though, he doesn’t find anybody in the Haus at all, which is weird, and Betsy II is stone-cold, which is alarming, but he decides to check Faber before completely freaking out and that’s where he finds half the team, playing 5-on-5 with Chowder and some kid he doesn’t know in the nets. Bitty’s randomizer really stacked the red team this time, so it’s no surprise they come out on top. Jack applauds then, letting them all know he’s here, and Bitty’s out in front of the rest of the team, the surprised frogs and the bickering d-men and Chowder in full pads, saying that if Jack wants to stay he should give them advice while he watches.

Jack agrees, and spends the next 45 minutes or so calling tips to everyone and secretly trying to decide which matchup is the most entertaining. Dex vs. Nursey is a good one; someone seems to have figured out a way to make their drive to outdo each other work when they play together but it’s hilariously exposed when they’re on opposite teams. Skimmer looks like he’s got a competitive thing with the young goalie. But the best matchup happens in the last game, when Bitty and Chowder are finally on opposing teams. They’re brutal. Bitty pushes Chowder much harder than he pushes the rest of the team, and Chowder pushes back, ups his game, makes increasingly wild saves. Bitty starts to look increasingly proud.

It’s a well-oiled team, and Jack loves that it was Bitty who made it that way.

He helps cook the team dinner that night, and afterwards they all crowd into the living room to watch the Bruins game. Chowder and Farmer get increasingly excited as the game goes on and the Sharks pull ahead, and Chowder nearly breaks the green couch in the middle of the third, when the injury-ridden Bruins defense manages to kill a penalty with its dying breath.

The Sharks win. Jack stays with Bitty.

Two weeks later, the Wellies are conference champions, in Providence for the East Regional championship, running through the NCAA playoffs like a hockey team through a hot pie. The Falconers have pretty much clinched the Presidents’ Trophy. And Kent Parson has come to Providence.

But Jack is actually OK when he sees Kenny this time, no residual guilt or worry about Bitty or we-might-date-him weirdness to cloud the thrill he feels knowing he gets to play hockey with Kenny again, knowing they’ll share ice time. And he’s probably just imagining Kenny looks a little bit like he hasn’t been sleeping.

Just like last time, the game-winning goal is scored by one of the two top draft prospects of 2009.

This time, it’s Jack.

When Bitty asks him later for a recap, Jack doesn’t really remember much of the game. Just him, and the sound of the ice below him, and the last goal, and Kenny.

And the next day, when Jack asks Bitty how his game went, Bitty just smiles and says, “Next Thursday we’ll be in Chicago.”

And they talk almost the whole night about how far they’ve come, but they don’t talk about how far they’ll go, just in case they jinx it.

\--

Bitty tries to be good about checking the messages on his blog and his Twitter, reading as many as he can and replying to a few, using some to get ideas for future videos.

Which is how he ends up reading a message from pieinthesky348: ‘um. did u know there’s fanfic of you?’

He looks it up immediately.

It’s not _just_ fanfiction of him. It’s fanfiction of him _and Jack_. And it’s not just fanfiction of him and Jack. It’s _over seven hundred_ fanfictions of him and Jack.

‘Jack Zimmermann/Eric Bittle, 13,085 words, 6/8 chapters, Explicit. Summary: “Jack and Eric have the perfect relationship. But when Jack’s first love shows up out of the blue, who will he choose?”’

Oh Lord. It would be funny if it wasn’t so weird, the idea of people he’ll never meet obsessing over his sex life, and he’s briefly thankful that his parents are bad with computers and will never ever find this, and then he wonders whether Jack knows and finds that for once he’s not sure how Jack would react to news like this.

When Bitty finally manages to broach the subject over Skype that night, Jack says, “Bitty, people have been writing fanfiction about me since I was 18, playing with Kenny like we could read each other’s minds. I’m used to it.” He pauses, considering. “Or maybe I should worry about it since they seem to be 2 for 2 on my secret relationships so far?”

Bitty laughs then, and they stay up just a little later than they should, cracking terrible jokes and reading each other the cheesiest summaries they can find.

\--

And then the future arrives. 

Jack has a game the night of Samwell’s appearance in the NCAA final, but everyone else from Samwell hockey’s recent past is there in Chicago, decked out in red and white. Shitty and Lardo are holding a sign that says ‘Yo marry me Eric Bittle’ which he’s pretty sure is a reference to that other sign he wishes he didn’t remember. Holster has an armful of caffeinated drinks which is diminishing as rapidly as he can get Ransom (who looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks) to drink them. Johnson is there too, though Bitty’s not sure anyone invited him, and seems to be saying something about how this game appears to be primarily intended to express the passage of time in a way appropriate to the protagonists from whose perspective the story is written.

Or something like that, anyway.

North Dakota scores early in the first. Samwell ties it up near the end of the second. The coaches talk strategy to the team, make a few line adjustments, warn everyone not to get frustrated, then ask Bitty to add a few words to psyche them up.

Bitty says if they lose he’s not making pie for a month.

They score less than 30 seconds into the third, Skimmer feeding the puck to Bitty who tips it in gloveside, and again in the 15th minute, Nursey clearing the puck to Dex who takes it on the breakaway, and then Chowder makes a wild stick save in the final minute which somehow ends up in the Hawks’ empty net.

Samwell, by a score of 4-1, are NCAA champions.

Bitty saves some of the confetti.

Two days later, the Falconers lose their last regular season game in OT in Tampa, 2-1. And then it’s the playoffs for them and 14 other teams, including the Pens and the Panthers, the Sharks, and, of course, the Aces. The Falcs, as Presidents’ Trophy winners, will have home advantage as long as they stay in it, so Bitty and the rest of the (champion!) Samwell men’s hockey team carpool to Providence on Wednesday and Friday for the first two games of the first round, Falcs against the wild-card Rangers. They win both, and after the second most of the Wellies (plus Shitty and the real ‘Yo marry me Jack Zimmermann’ sign, which Bitty is horrified to see he kept) end up crashing at Jack’s place. They’re still there when he has to leave Sunday morning, but Bitty has a key so he figures it’s fine.

(It turns out they didn’t know about Bitty’s key, and when he gets off the team plane and turns his phone back on he has 36 texts from Shitty, all along the lines of ‘brah i want a key you are stifling my relationship with your couch’ and 1 from Bitty that reads ‘Oh goodness Jack why??’)

They win both nights in New York too, and sweeping here means they have a little extra time to practice and watch the other games, see who’s coming for them next. Jack trains hard, so he takes to Skyping Bitty at gametime so Bitty can keep him awake while they watch.

\--

Miami Sun-Sentinel, 2017-04-20  
**JAGR BOMB**  
Feathers fly as Cats sweep Red Wings; Jagr picks up 11 points

Providence Journal, 2017-04-20  
**FALCONERS SOAR IN FIRST ROUND SWEEP**  
Plus: Jack Zimmermann on expectations

Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2017-04-21  
**DUCKS’ HOPES “QUACKED”**  
Casino buffets put duck back on the menu as Aces win in 5

Chicago Tribune, 2017-04-23  
**BLACK EYES**  
Blackhawks knocked out by Stars; Kane takes puck to face in game 6 loss

Washington Times, 2017-04-23  
**CROSS-BY**  
Captain Canada denied; Ovechkin and Backstrom combine for 17 points

Tampa Bay Times, 2017-04-25  
**ROAR OF THUNDER**  
Attendance reaches record highs as Lightning defeat Bruins

Houston Chronicle, 2017-04-26  
**BLUES’ BLUES**  
St. Louis knocked out as Aeros pull off stunning upset in 7

San Jose Mercury News, 2017-04-26  
**KING ME**  
Analysis of the Sharks’ near reverse-sweep, and why fans should have hope

\--

And then it’s the second round, and Ovechkin’s continuing his excellent season, scoring a hatty on Providence ice to tie the series 1-1. Providence takes both games in DC, though, and on their triumphant return to Providence Jack returns the favor, clinching the series with his first NHL postseason hat trick. The third goal is an empty-netter, and they didn’t strictly need it to win the game, but the opportunity was there and Jack took it and now there are hats raining down on the ice all around him, the whole crowd looking at him like the hockey savior they’d set him up to be all those years ago.

The Wellies can’t stay tonight, though, and Jack realizes that Bitty graduates tomorrow and this win means he can be there.

He’s grinning inanely in all his postgame interviews.

\--

Providence Journal, 2017-05-06  
**CAPPED**  
Zimmermann hat trick seals series against Washington

Miami Sun-Sentinel, 2017-05-10  
**PANTHERS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING**  
Cats’ Cup hopes foiled in Tampa

Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2017-05-10  
**ACES TRUMP KINGS**  
Why a bet on Las Vegas is no gamble

Houston Chronicle, 2017-05-11  
**BIGGER IN TEXAS**  
How the Aeros beat their intrastate rival and why their second 7-game series could hurt them

\--

It’s only the second or third time no Original Six team has made it to the semifinals, but Jack isn’t really thinking about hockey history right now because Bitty’s moved back in, for good this time. It makes him ache a little, but in a good way, and seeing the space Bitty takes up reminds him that they might need space for Kenny. He resolves to take Bitty shopping after the Eastern Championship, because Kenny’s a sprawler and they are definitely out of excuses not to get a bigger bed.

Five games later Jack is on the front of the Providence Journal, looking serious next to the Prince of Wales Trophy.

The very next day, equally serious next to the Campbell Bowl, it’s Kenny.

The Stanley Cup Final will be the Falconers vs the Aces.

\--

Providence Journal, 2017-05-27  
**DIVINE PROVIDENCE**  
Zimmermann leads Falconers to their first ever Stanley Cup Final

Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2017-05-28  
**AER’D OUT**  
Parson scores 5 in 5 games to lead Aces to another Cup Final

New York Times, 2017-06-01  
**PARSON AND ZIMMERMANN**  
The series we’ve all been waiting for, and why everyone should care

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Initially I didn't notice that next year's NCAA East Regionals are going to be in Providence, but they are. Bitty and Jack don't get to see each other in person or in games this time though; their games are on alternating nights but they have practices and shit. The Frozen Four will be held in Chicago next year (it's in Tampa this year).  
> -The Presidents' Trophy goes to the NHL team with the most points in the regular season.  
> -Jack has totally read fanfiction about himself.  
> -Ransom is in med school and Holster is half-assing his MBA studies while making sure Ransom doesn't die.  
> -Goalies can score! It doesn't happen often (literally about 6 times ever in the NHL) but it's one of my favorite things. It's pretty great in soccer too. (Basically I love goalies? Goalies are great.)  
> -Home ice advantage: 2 home, 2 away, 1 home, 1 away, 1 home.  
> -I really love puns, so writing the newspaper headlines was the best thing ever. The dates are based on last year's playoff dates, adjusted for 2017. The newspapers are real.  
> -Real player roundup: Patrick Kane is a right winger and A for the Chicago Blackhawks. Alexander Ovechkin is a left winger and C for the Washington Capitals. Nicklas Backstrom is a center and A for the Caps.  
> -Bitty double-majored in Marketing and Communications.  
> -The Original Six were: Boston Bruins, Chicago Black Hawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, and Toronto Maple Leafs.  
> -The Prince of Wales Trophy and the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl go to the winner of the East and West, respectively. Most teams are superstitious about touching them because it might jinx the Final.


	7. Of Cups

The thing is, Jack somehow hadn’t expected any of this, hadn’t expected Providence to make it this far, or the Aces either. Thought that at this point he and Bitty and hopefully Kenny would be sitting together on the couch, chirping Jack about his ass taking up too much space and watching a Stanley Cup Final with someone else in it.

But now Kenny will be in Providence, not just on the same coast but actually in the same city, and it seems like Jack and Bitty have a decision to make, but they don’t, not really. They could tell him tomorrow, sure, but if they did then no matter what Kenny’s answer, Jack would be distracted, couldn’t play his best, and they’ve waited so long already that what’s a couple of weeks’ difference, really?

Jack thinks he should probably feel bad for prioritizing hockey over the men he loves (and what a feeling he gets from thinking that phrase now), but when he says as much to Bitty, Bitty tells him they can ask people out any day of the week, but the Stanley Cup Finals don’t happen every day, and Jack shouldn’t waste all the hard work he put in to get there.

So it’s no decision; they’ll wait until the series is done, until either Jack or Kenny takes a victory lap in Providence or Las Vegas with 15.5 kilograms or 35 pounds of Cup held high.

This, of course, presents other difficulties, such as _one of them has to lose_.

If Jack loses, he worries that all his old insecurities might come back, that his jealousy could ruin their relationship with Kenny before it even begins, because comparing yourself to someone and always coming up short is a great way to cross the line between love and hate in a hurry.

If Kenny loses, Jack’s pretty sure he’ll probably sulk for days or weeks, definitely won’t take any calls or talk to him. They might have to postpone asking him for another year.

With two less-than-stellar situations from which to choose, Jack figures he’ll go for the one that at least gets him the Cup.

Kenny hasn’t got a chance.

Except, as it turns out, Kenny _has_ got a chance. The Falconers win the first two 1-0, 2-1 to the cheers of the home crowd (and the Wellies, present and past, who’ve become such a fixture in the Falcs’ postseason that the commentators know them by name), but they lose both in Las Vegas, 1-3, 1-2, which means this series will stretch to six games at least.

On returning to Providence, they win convincingly, 4-0, Johnson working hard for the shutout, and Kenny narrowly avoids getting suspended for the next game, despite his thrown helmet nearly decking a ref, by claiming he’d tripped and lost his grip on it. Jack knows it’s a lie, really a blatantly stupid one since Kenny was on camera the whole time, but he’s always done audacity well and Jack is perhaps the only one not surprised when he gets away with it.

Bitty is as annoyed by the decision as any Falcs fan, but when he says as much to Jack, he replies that he’d rather have Kenny on the ice with him, even though it makes winning harder, because it reminds him of when he was young and dumb and on top of the world, reminds him that he has the chance now to be older and wiser but still the same, ‘hockey prince’ proving he deserves his throne.

Bitty has Jack tell him Kent stories while they pack for Vegas.

Jack buys the Wellies plane tickets, since the Falcs have the chance to win this thing, but it turns out the hockey gods must see that as hubris, because they lose 1-2.

And then it’s Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

It’s the 17th Game 7 in the history of Stanley Cup finals, and Jack knows the home team has won 12 of those, and that’s something in their favor, but the away team won the other four so they can’t get cocky, can’t rest even for a minute.

The adrenaline is building up in him, making him impatient for the game to start, for something, anything, to happen. He’s on edge, feeling strangely lonely even amongst his teammates, even in a building filled with tens of thousands of fans. He tries to calm himself by looking for familiar faces in the crowd, sees Bitty, wants him so desperately it makes him stop breathing for a moment, and then the Aces come out on the ice, Kenny leading them, and Jack wants him just as desperately, so much that he starts breathing again, centered, rhythm returning to his lungs.

And that’s them in a nutshell, really. Being with Kenny was easy as breathing, knowing each other so well on and off the ice, camaraderie and competition, but never taking chances, never telling uncomfortable truths, and easy was so hard to keep when things got difficult. And being with Bitty is heartstopping, always new and fresh even after two years. Bitty does push limits and take chances and say things Jack might not want to hear, and it makes Jack a better person.

He decides he’s not going to wait a minute longer than he has to. When they line up, he asks Kenny if, win or lose, he’d come by tomorrow, talk some things over.

Kenny looks at him for a while, and Jack can see he’s considering it, but the ref comes over, about ready to drop the puck.

“I’ll try,” says Kenny. They shake hands. They focus on _right now_.

It’s the best game of hockey either of them has ever played.

The Falconers score first, and it’s Jack who puts it in the net, a one-timer off some excellent back-and-forth between his wingers, keeping Reveille and the Aces defense from noticing Jack’s position until it was too late. Reveille probably won’t forget Jack again in a hurry. The Falcs’ third line scores next, a sweet little flick off a rebound. 

And then there’s Kenny, sniping it into the corner, cutting it so close Jack thinks it’s a miss until he sees the puck in the net.

And the first period ends.

The second period is largely a defensive battle, both teams preventing much travel through the neutral zone, neither managing to muster much attack. The Aces do break through with about 4 minutes left, though, and their second-line center manages to get a shot off while Johnson is being screened, can’t see the puck, and it goes in.

And the second period ends.

The third period is ugly, both sides getting frustrated and tired and sloppy and taking penalty after penalty. They’re down to 3-on-3 at one point, a depressing reminder that they’ll have to go to overtime if they don’t win soon, and it’s been a long, long series.

And then they’re finally back at full strength and the Falcs’ first line comes back on and somehow Jack has the puck on his stick and the Aces d-men aren’t there and it’s just him facing down Reveille alone…

Jack executes an inch-perfect no-look pass to his left winger, who snipes it home from the Ovechkin spot and they’re ahead 3-2 with 2:33 remaining, two minutes and thirty-three seconds in which Johnson and the defense hold it down. 

The horn sounds.

The arena explodes.

Jack makes it to Johnson first, and then the whole team is hugging as the Cup trustees make their way onto the ice and then he’s kissing the Cup and hoisting it and taking a lap and handing it off to Johnson for his lap and then Bitty’s there and he’s kissing Bitty and nobody seems to care and he’s never felt this good in his entire life but he knows that after tomorrow he might feel _even better_.

Later, after he’s taken photos with the Cup and his teammates (Johnson asks if they’ll be his spotters while he does a headstand), the Cup and his parents (Alicia asks if they can recreate 1991), the Cup and Bitty (the photographer asks if they want it framed); after he’s run the press gauntlet (“Why were you kissing that guy?” asks a reporter who probably won’t have a job tomorrow (or ever again really, with a question like that). “Well,” Jack deadpans, drunk on adrenaline and _the Stanley Cup holy shit_ , “when a man and another man love each other very much…” and the rest of the press laughs and moves on); after the team go out to celebrate (“Of course we knew, Jack, nobody makes that many pies for his _roommate’s_ hockey team."); Jack finally goes home.

It’s around 2 or 3 or maybe 4 in the morning, but the light is on in the kitchen, and he can smell maple sugar and apples which means a celebratory pie is baking. He hears SportsCenter playing in the living room, so he heads that way, breathing in sweet pie smell and imagining all the ways tomorrow might go _absolutely fine_ , actually.

Jack can just see Bitty’s blond head on the armrest of the couch, at an odd angle like he must be sleeping, so he goes over as quietly as he can, intending to kiss him on the forehead, maybe tuck him in. This is not what happens.

Instead, what happens is several things at once:  
1\. The pie smell intensifies;  
2\. Someone hip-checks the living room door closed and turns on the light;  
3\. Gray-green eyes snap open from sleep;  
4\. “Missed you, Zimms,” says the man on the couch; and  
5\. A voice behind him says, “Goodness, y’all started without me?”

Jack turns around then just to confirm that Bitty is actually behind him, and when he turns back it becomes obvious why Bitty’s blocking the door, because Kenny’s gone from horizontal to vertical and looks like he’s seriously considering going out the window if Bitty doesn’t get away from the door. Jack looks at Bitty again; Bitty shifts the pie to one hand and indicates with the other that Jack should be the one to calm Kent down.

What Jack says, pleading and hopeful, is this:

“Stay, Kenny.”

Which is a name he’s heard Jack use a thousand times, but never with so much care.

Kent doesn’t look any less alarmed, but he does sit. Not on the couch, though. No, on the armchair. Unlike the couch, the armchair’s not new; it squeaks when he sits, and Bitty really wishes it had managed to reduce the tension even a little bit rather than making it worse.

They’re silent again, frozen and staring at each other while SportsCenter finishes whatever they were saying about baseball or basketball or some other sport and loops back to hockey, and then Jack is on the screen, in still pictures, raising the Cup, avoiding taking Johnson’s skate blades to the face, holding his dad up while his mama doubles over laughing, leaning over the Cup to kiss a familiar blond…

Bitty turns off the TV, hoping Kent didn’t see that, or if he did that he didn’t get the wrong idea, but it’s clear even to Bitty that there’s no chance of that.

Bitty looks at Jack again; Jack sits down on the couch with his back to the armrest, the one farther from Kent’s chair, and gestures to Bitty that it’s his turn, actually. He sets the pie down on the other armrest, sits next to it, tucks his feet under him, and says, “I think this conversation will go a lot easier once we’ve all had some pie,” and he cuts three slices. The silence that comes from people appreciating a good dessert is a lot less tense than the one that came from them dreading a conversation.

When they finish their pie, it’s Jack who looks at Kenny, Jack who’s been thinking of ways to put this the whole time they were eating, and says, “We have a lot to say, and we’re not good at talking. It might sound pretty bad before we get to the end. But you need to hear all of it. Stay, Kenny. Please.”

And Jack knows Kenny, knows he’ll agree, but doesn’t know how serious Kenny really is until he hears the words.

“I promise,” Parse says, and neither of them can doubt how much he means it.

“You hate drying dishes,” Jack starts, and Bitty’s definitely heard that story but he doesn’t really see how it’s relevant. It obviously is, though, because it’s got Kent looking like he might forget the promise already and run. “You drove over three hours both ways to see Bitty last summer when he was upset.”

“You ran when I told you Jack loved you,” Bitty breaks in, on familiar ground now. “You ran when the three of us were alone last time, too. You love Jack.”

“And you love Bitty,” Jack adds before Parse can say anything.

“What?” asks Bitty, turning to Jack.

“It’s true,” says Jack. “Isn’t it, Kenny?”

Parse is very still, gripping the chair so hard his knuckles are white. He looks panicked, like this is a nightmare he can’t wake up from.

“Look,” he says, and he sounds so lonely they could cry, “I know you two are together, OK? I don’t want to ruin that.”

“Who says you’d be ruining it?” asks Bitty.

“Um,” says Parse, after a long pause. “What?”

“We want you, Kenny. Both of us.”

Parse stares at his hands for a long time, considering, finally says, “I don’t think I can deal with it if I can’t keep you.”

“Keep… Kenny, that’s not what I meant. I meant… I want to go running with you every morning.”

“And I want to bake you your favorite pie every time you do something amazing.”

“I want you to try to make me laugh in press conferences.”

“I want to hear you tell me stories about Jack when we do the dishes.”

“Kenny, I want to get out on the ice with you _every day_.”

“Oh shit,” says Parse, and covers his mouth. “Fuck,” he says when he takes his hand away, and he still looks dazed when Zimms gets up and heads to the armchair and tilts Parse’s face up, leans down, kisses him, and if he hadn’t looked stunned before he definitely does now. And then Bitty is perched on the chair’s arm, asking if ‘fuck’ had actually meant ‘please come kiss me now,’ and Parse can only nod, and then Bitty leans in, balancing like he’s kissed someone from the arm of a chair before, and that thought and the kiss pretty much short-circuit Parse’s brain, so when Bitty leans back, all he can say is “fuck.” Again.

Bitty asks Jack to translate.

“He meant exactly what he said,” Jack says, smirking like a little shit who’s just kissed the Stanley Cup and Kent Parson too. “Didn’t you, Kenny?”

Parse nods again, because he’s pretty sure if he tries to talk there’s only one word that’ll come out.

They take him by the hands and lead him to the bedroom, where they make him say “fuck” again. A lot.

They make him say other things too, but “fuck” is first, when they sit him down on the bed and race to see who can unbutton more of his shirt buttons and they’re both slow because Bitty keeps stopping to lick up his abs and Zimms keeps stopping to mouth along his collarbone and he really can’t help but say it.

He’s about to go for the buttons himself when they finally undo the last one, sliding his shirt from his shoulders. Zimms moves up, finding all the same sensitive spots on Parse’s neck he used to, and Bitty… Bitty moves down, unbuttons Parse’s jeans, frees his cock from his boxers. He’s momentarily distracted then, head falling back involuntarily as Zimms sucks what will almost certainly be a hickey into the base of his throat, and when he looks down again, Bitty’s unwrapping a condom and “oh, God, yes, please, your mouth,” says Parse, and then he can’t stop talking. “Oh Christ, Zimms, right there, ah, shit, touch me Zimms, oh fuck, Bitty, again, do that again, fuck,” becoming less coherent as they take him apart, Zimms’ mouth and hands everywhere and Bitty’s lips around his dick and strong hands holding his hips back and he’s babbling now and the pressure is building and there’re hands on his chest and a mouth on his neck and suction and a tongue flick to the head of his cock and then he comes, feeling a little boneless but Zimms is behind him, holding him steady, and Bitty stands and kisses them both, tasting of latex in a way that makes Parse resolve to bring up the Aces’ last STD check as soon as he can remember how sentences work. Bitty takes the condom and comes back with a damp cloth, cleans what little mess they made.

And then they’re all in bed, under the covers, and Parse has no idea how they got there but they’ve put him in the middle, and he wants to get them off, to hear that noise Zimms makes when he’s trying to be quiet, to see what Bitty looks like right before he goes over the edge, but the stress and the relief and the lateness of the hour and the really nice orgasm have all gotten to him and he falls asleep before he can start.

“Fuck,” he mumbles as he drifts off, and he thinks he hears them chuckle.

He wakes up to someone’s lips on his, to bright light from the window, to bodies on either side of him in bed. He’s startled for a minute, claws his way upright, breaking the kiss and trying to figure out where the fuck he is, but then he sees that the lips were Bitty’s and Zimms is the one on the other side, smiling like he’s actually happy for once and it’s all just a little too sappy for Parse, really.

“Stop kissing me,” he says, and then he’s momentarily disappointed in himself for making their faces fall like that. “My mouth tastes like ass.”

“You wish your mouth tasted like ass,” chirps Bitty, smirking now.

“No,” Zimms joins in. “He wishes _my_ mouth tasted like ass.”

“Fuck,” Parse says again, irrepressible sappiness spilling into his tone and probably across his face too. “What the fuck am I going to do with you two?”

“First, breakfast,” says Bitty. “I’m making pancakes.”

“And then?”

“Then y’all have _got_ to get rid of those playoff beards.”

“And after that?”

“Oh, I think I can come up with something.”

And Bitty does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -This chapter is super self-referential. It's also about twice as long as the other ones.  
> -Parse is really good at denying shit.  
> -I made up another goalie because why not? I just love goalies, OK? Reveille is the Aces' goalie, obviously. He refuses to speak before a game; from midnight if he's starting and from noon if he's backing up. Otherwise he's pretty normal for a goalie.  
> -The C traditionally takes the first lap with the Cup. The Cup is presented by the NHL commissioner, who does not appear in this fic.  
> -The reporter was not only dumb for asking a question with an obvious answer but also for not knowing who Bitty was. Pretty much everyone else in the room did.  
> -I don't think SportsCenter actually plays all night but this is a slightly alternate universe in which slightly more people care about hockey so I think we can let it slide.  
> -"Chair squeaks, everyone laughs" is sort of a movie/TV trope but in real life it's more like "chair squeaks, I think, 'shit, did I break your chair??? oh my god everyone is looking at me now what do I do???'".  
> -Bitty is better at communication than Jack usually but he really didn't have all the cards and also was still thinking they were going V-shaped.  
> -The 'one night vs forever' misunderstanding thing I both love and hate.  
> -From Jack, "I want to be on the ice with you" is basically a marriage proposal.  
> -Don't put things in your mouth if you don't know where they've been. Especially dicks.  
> -Most pro sports teams keep a close eye on their athletes' health. In Vegas... Vegas has a reputation for debauchery.  
> -Beardburn is fun but Bitty's pretty sick of that shit by now.


	8. Epilogue: Of Kitchens

“Hey, y’all,” says Bitty, standing in his kitchen, “and welcome to Check, Please! Now, I know y’all are probably wondering why I’m standing in the kitchen. You’re probably also wondering why I’m doing a cookie decorating episode in June. Well, I know Christmas is a long way away, and I know I usually just talk tips instead of actually baking, but today, I’ve got two very special guests!

“First off, we’ve got a former Samwell hockey captain, now captain of the Providence Falconers and Stanley Cup champion, Jack Zimmermann!”

“Bitty,” says Jack, looking freshly clean-shaven and uncomfortable in front of the camera, as usual. He looks like he might be about to ask what the fuck is going on, so Bitty steamrolls past him before he can ruin the whole thing.

“We’ve also got two-time Cup winner and captain of the Las Vegas Aces, Kent Parson!”

“Good to be here, Bitty,” says Kent, snapping into media mode automatically. Bitty’s almost thrown off by that, but recovers quickly, and he can always edit it out if it’s obvious.

“We’ve seen them hoist the Stanley Cup, but which one will take home the coveted prize for this, the first ever Check, Please! Cookie Decorating Challenge?”

“What’s the prize, Bitty?” asks Jack, with a wink in his voice and a lot more interest now that a competition with Kent is on the table.

“Well, I’m glad you asked, Jack. Winner gets to take home a baked good of his choice!”

“Bitty, I live here,” says Jack, and there’s a pause before they all start laughing, and Bitty’s definitely editing that out, because, Lord, he doesn’t want to remind people of that.

“Any baked good?” asks Kent when they’ve stopped laughing, and, Lord, if these boys keep flirting with him he’s never going to get this video finished.

“Been a while since I had some nice hot cross buns,” says Jack, and Bitty’s not sure what voice that is but it’s definitely a little lower than usual.

“Mmm, hot cross buns,” says Kent, and the way he says it makes Bitty take a mental step backwards, and note that first of all, Good Friday was barely two months ago, and second of all, there’s nothing sexual about hot cross buns… oh.

He blushes. He can feel it creeping up his face and down his neck, and Kent looks very pleased with himself.

When he recovers, he says, “Then that’ll be pretty easy on me. Now how about I explain what we’re doing?

“First of all, we need lots and lots of sugar cookies and icing. If y’all don’t have a recipe for those, don’t worry, they’re super easy and I’ll link to mine right below. I took the liberty of baking these yesterday, so they’re not as fresh as I’d usually use for decorating, but there’re plenty of them and that’s what’s important.

“So, here’s the competition: which Cup-winning captain can decorate the best Cup cookies? You two think you can handle it?”

“Better than Zimms with a puck!” chirps Kent.

“I’m always prepared,” says Jack’s hockey-robot-press-voice, ignoring him.

“Go!” shouts Bitty, and they do.

The next few minutes of video, after a lot of editing from Bitty, is full of chirps between them all, Jack and Kent decorating furiously, and Bitty starting hot cross buns in the background.

“Time’s up!” says Bitty, coming up behind them, and they jump slightly. “Let’s see what you’ve got!

“From Jack, we have some really fine lettering, names and numbers of the entire Falconers roster. Nice!

“And from Kent, some card suits, sticking to the Vegas theme, and ooh, are those poker chips? I love it!

“So, without further ado, the winner is… both of you! Yes, I’m sending you both home with some hot cross buns!

“To Jack and Kent and all of y’all watching this, thank you so much!”

Later, when he’s editing, he saves a few clips for himself. He keeps “Bitty, I live here,” some not-very-PG chirps, and a shot of them turning around, a floury handprint on each of their perfect hockey asses.

It’s a ridiculous start.

But, somehow, Bitty’s pretty sure they’ll live happily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -This epilogue is purely self-indulgent.  
> -Yes, it takes place immediately after the last chapter.  
> -Jack can't draw at all.
> 
> Some things in my headcanon for the far future of this:  
> -Kent's contract expires on July 1, 2018. The Falconers have some cap space. Commence Parson-Zimmermann patented no-look one-timers.  
> -Bitty does baking competitions with NHL players about every two or three weeks; he gets to know most of the PR people in every organization. Aaron Ekblad totally hits him up for cookie recipes.  
> -Jack is happy.


End file.
